File:Africa (1878) (14773262961).jpg

Identifier: africa00johnrich (find matches)
Title: Africa
Year: 1878 (1870s)
Authors: Johnston, Alexander Keith, 1804-1871 Keane, A. H. (Augustus Henry), 1833-1912
Subjects: Africa -- Description and travel Africa -- Social life and customs
Publisher: London : Edward Stanford
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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eason may inundate the country thigh and waist deep,so that the traveller is brought to a standstill by the super-abundance of water on all sides of him, and can do no usefulgeographical work, the heavily clouded sky shutting out sunand stars from view, and preventing the determination of hisposition. Witness, for example, Livingstones journey to thelake chain of the Chambese during the wet season, when hefound it rarely possible even to see a star, and obtained asolitary observation for latitude, only by accident as it were,on waking one morning between two and three oclock. The monthly diagrams which accompany these notes arereductions of twelve larger maps upon which the recordedexperiences of residents and travellers in all parts of the con-tinent, in respect of the times of rainfall, were marked out bytinting witli blue colour the localities in which their observa-tions were made for each of the months during which rainyweather prevailed over dry ; and by colouring in brown those
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557 II. NOTES ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF RAININ AFRICA. By Keith Johnston. Besides its high interest in a meteorological point of view,the question of the distribution of rain in Africa is one of somuch practical importance in the gradual accumulation ofknowledge of the continent, that no apology seems to benecessary for an attempt to trace out, however imperfectly itcan be done as yet, the broader features of this problem. Indirecting the proper times for successful exploration byEuropeans of the many regions of the continent which arestill unknown, a knowledge of the seasons of rain and droughtmust be of the greatest consequence. The natives even canonly venture into some of the more arid deserts of the Sahara,during the times in which a few fleeting showers fill thedistant wells ; in tropical Africa, by contrast, the rains of thewet season may inundate the country thigh and waist deep,so that the traveller is brought to a standstill by the super-abundance of water on all sides of him,

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